Featured Blogs

Blogs may sound anachronistic in a time of Social Media. Still I prefer them. Here is a selection of those I follow. Of course, it’s neither my responsibility, nor my business what authors there write.

After returning from spring temperatures in Germany, a guarantee for white Christmas was making us head to Harbin in North China's Heilongjiang Province, one of the three Provinces forming Dongbei. Harbin is famous for its Ice Festival starring nice ice sculptures. But at sustained -20 Degrees Celsius, there is about anything you can do there which requires temperatures below freezing. The Songhua River is deeply packed with ice and all kinds of amusement is arranged on its surface.

Harbin street scene in the early 20th Century. Taken in the church St. Sophie, which is converted into a photo exhibition.

Harbin is often called the Moscow of the East, due to the early Russian settlements and also contemporary remains of Russian architecture. However, Harbin is still about 500 km away from the Russian border. The city was founded only in 1898 by a Polish engineer, during the construction of the Trans-Manchurian Railway which was linking Vladivostok, Dalian and Port Arthur to the Trans-Sibirian Railway in the East. Russia held a military base in Harbin during the Russo-Japanese War and they were defeated by Western expeditionary forces and Chinese allies soon after. Immigrants from over 30 counties settled in Harbin soon after and a big push of Russians came who fled Communism after the Russian Revolution - mainly White Russians, and about 20 000 Jews - specially in the 1930s fleeing the German Holocaust. They contributed a lot to Harbin's culture and economy and it is said that Western artists and fashion designers first reached Harbin, before Shanghai. Today, one of the very interesting destinations in Harbin is the Jewish Museum, which gives accounts to this period. In 1931 the Japanese invaded Harbin and a concentration camp style medical experimentation site, the Unit 731, was established and operated, committing war crimes at utmost horror. There is still a museum in the South of the city. But it is said to be not a real museum, but just an Anti-Japanes propaganda site, which is not worth visiting if interested in what really happened there. The Kuomintang never got hold of Harbin, but what followed were the Chinese Communists. Having Stalin and the Russian Communists in the North, and Mao and the Chinese Communists in their neck, many Jews took their chance and fled to the newly established Israel. Many other foreigners fled to Australia and Brazil. During Mao's era, Harbin was a focus point for projects of many of his misguided projects, like The Great Leap forward and it suffered severe destruction during the Cultural Revolution. There are still a few architectural remains, but generally the city now looks like any Chinese mega town. What has not been destroyed by Japanese bombs or Mao's Red Guards, has been flattened by modern real estate developments and makes Harbin as ugly as any modern Chinese city. Still there are attempts to remain cultural heritage, like music festivals and other cultural events. However, with no significant infrastructure, heavy pollution, and a corrupted local government, the city has a bigger fish to fry than being pretty.

Shaping it

A worker cutting an ice block into shape for an ice sculpture.

Snowman/woman

Beside ice, compressed snow is a construction material in the Harbin Ice Festival.

Scating ground

Polished ice skating ground at the river side.

Skating

On the skating ground at the river side in Harbin.

Crossing the river

Walking over the frozen river with the heavily polluted city of Harbin in the back.

Jewish Museum

Museum on the Jewish settlers in Harbin, and their cultural and economic contribution.

Skating ground

Ice skating ground at the riverside in Harbin.

Carriages

Offering horse carriages to cross the frozen river in Harbin.

Walking on water

Zhu Feibai crossing the frozen river in Harbin.

Tropical retreat

Fruit store on an outdoor market at -20 Degrees Celsius.

Frozen food section

Frozen goods at an outdoor market in Harbin.

Frozen in

House boat frozen in.

Waiting for a rise

Construction material bulk ship which sank on sand.

Western remains

Remaining Western style buildings in Harbin.

Remains

Remaining Western style buildings in Harbin.

Snowman/woman

Workers shaping their snow sculpture at the riverside in Harbin.

After shoveling

Workers after shoveling snow, on the way to a new site.

Tough Harbin Girls

Photo taken in the exhibition in St. Sophie in Harbin. It takes a higher metabolism to do that.

It is still a few weeks from now and I can go to the office again on ice skates. This will be a nice commute. There is already a thin crust and expect this to become solid soon. The environmental situation of these canals has been much better this year, than before. Formerly, there was color and chemicals dumped in, to make the it not flip over into a stinking mud. This year solar powered ventilators have been applied, besides a lot of measures cutting out the access wheat. This looks like quite a successful method to keep the oxygen level in the water up.

The Chinese new year started with a sunny Sunday. And as it was a working Sunday, I took the opportunity to commute to the office on my ice skates. This was a very nice commute, down the canal to Sanlitun in the morning. The water level has been dropping and the ice is cracky, but thick and safe. Only at some inlets it is melting. And at one point there is a hole which people use to (believe it or not) go swimming. At night going home, I did not skate, because I could not see the cracks in the dark and also I might have fallen into one of these holes. Many companies have started work today, even it is a Sunday. Together with having a working Saturday the week before, many had 7 days public holidays in a row. But the Sunday was not a quiet one, as everybody tried to get a headstart. From tomorrow, the calendar is packed and I expect a bit of a stormy week also, because we have quite high visitors. So, in terms of blog entries I might excuse myself for a few days.

During Spring Festival Beijing is laid back and festive. Most people which have their families not in Beijing, travel back to their home towns. Logistically the best thing to do during these days is to stay where you are. All others who also stay enjoy a week holiday and there are many things you can do in this city. Not just the cultural repertoire is huge, but also you can just get onto a lake ice skating, do a hike in the mountains along the spectacular parts of the Great Wall which are less "developed" or even drive up to a ski resort. Hiking, I was surprised that there are now also many Chinese going outdoors and enjoying the scenery. A few years ago, they did not go too much into the countryside. Now there are many "Donkey Friend Clubs", which are mainly self organized groups walking together far distances. For a first orientation, I found that the Beijing Hikers are organizing nice groups. There are a lot of foreigners in these groups, but they are not the typical Expats, but nice people which have been living long time abroad and many of them speak Chinese. I guess, that foreigners strolling around the Chinese countryside with a rucksack, already implies some self selection.

Of course, I would not be in China, if not everywhere small little businesses open to cater into all kinds of holiday demands. From the man with the mobile sweet patato bakery who is counting his money on the frozen lake where he sells his snacks to the ice skaters (see photo on the left), to extra capacities in taking family portraits in the China Photo Studio. Not to mention the huts selling the fireworks which turn the nights in Beijing into a self (un-)organized light show which is unmatched anywhere. I was wondering how safe it is when the firework's salesman is smoking sitting on a few tons of gunpowder. But you think it is "cool" just to smoke in a non-smoking area in Hong Kong and chase away the little policeman? That's nothing against sitting smoking on a pile of gunpowder chatting with the policeman on how the family is doing. Happy new year, health luck and prosperity for the Year of the Dragon.